Christine Lagarde, France’s minister of finance, seems set to emerge as the leading candidate for the post of Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, succeeding Dominique Strauss-Kahn, himself a former French Finance Minister. Formal nominations for the post are due on Friday, June 10.

As the eurozone debt crisis mounts and spreads, the austerity policies put in place by the worst-hit European countries are taking a political toll that could limit leaders’ decisions in their ultimate choices about Europe’s future.

Even if rumors about a Greek departure from the eurozone have been deflated, the recent flurry of speculation should not obscure the hard facts about what Athens needs to do: shrink the country’s defense spending, privatize more public-sector activity and collect more taxes from companies and wealthy citizens. These are the conditions for energizing the country’s economy and businesses.

There is a new twist in the disconnect between, on one hand, official denials on all sides that Greece will ever default on its sovereign debt and, on the other hand, the near-unanimity from economists and analysts that some form of restructuring is inevitable.

Finland has sustained a political tsunami in a parliamentary election that brought a spectacular breakthrough for a eurosceptic and potentially isolationist party, the True Finns. It rocketed to near-equality with the county’s two leading parties, quadrupling its votes during the past election.